games

Heads up in case you missed the news: gamers can get quadruple points all weekend on Star Wars Battlefront, something offered in celebration of the game's one-year anniversary. It's not terribly unusual for the studio to hold double-points weekends, but this quadruple points weekend is a rare event indeed, and one that can help you level up to higher character tiers -- and rack up credits -- very quickly. The event follows EA's announcement of the December DLC.

This weekend holds a bit of sad news for Overwatch fans: the planned First Strike graphic novel has been canceled. The graphic novel was originally slated for publications in April 2017, with the idea itself dating back to the video game’s development. According to lead writer Michael Chu, though, the decision to cancel the graphic novel is because “we’ve ultimately decided to take the story in a different direction."

There’s no shortage of classic board games rehashed with more modern features and themed boards — the electronic bank card Monopoly is one example, as is the recently unveiled Skyrim Monopoly version. The latest classic game to be offered with a special theme is "Clue," the sleuthing game that, in this case, puts players on a 2-storey Death Star. The new game, simply called "Star Wars Edition," is available now from Hasbro.

Microsoft has announced the launch of Minecraft Hour of Code Designer, a new tutorial that’s part of the House of Code campaign held from December 5 to December 11th (the Computer Science Education Week). The new tutorial is freely available on the Code.org website, where it exists as a simple interactive tutorial for young children (and interested beginners) who want to make and then share their own little Minecraft game.

The big Fall Update for Battlefield 1 is available now, and it brings with it fixes, general improvements, new features, and more. Most of the changes have been applied for all platforms on which the game is available; as well, some of the changes listed in the update notes are said to be ‘coming soon,’ so you’ll still have to wait in some cases. Operations mode games and Suez Conquest will both have been balance following the update, light machine guns have been update to ‘more viable mid-range weapons,’ maps have been tweaked and fixed extensively, and more.

Minecraft Pocket Edition and Windows 10 edition will soon be updated to version 1.0, a big milestone for both versions and a notable update overall. Mojang says a bunch of features are coming to both versions of the game via this update — which it calls the “The Ender Update” — and the biggest one among them is “The Ender Dragon.” The dragon, a “misunderstood beast,” according to Mojang, is the “tangible end-game” for those who play Survival.

As it is with most new gaming devices, how fast the device is adopted by the public depends on many things from pricing to the available games. The HTC Vive and other VR headsets are appealing , but not quite to the stage yet where the gaming masses are ready to play. One of the things that could get gamers ready to buy is a sweet game that makes you really want to play.

Sony dropped a fun, if not brief, announcement on its PlayStation Twitter account earlier today: there's a new DualShock 4 controller inbound, and it has a traditional green camouflage design. The controller will be available to purchase starting some time next month (an exact date was not provided save for 'late' in December). The model will be available alongside the new upcoming Silver color.

Facebook introduced a couple games in Messenger in recent months, including one related to basketball and another related to soccer. As it turns out, both those games were experiments for a larger project called ‘Instant Games,’ at least per new sources who have cropped up, and we’ll be getting more games in the future. Instant Games may be rolling out in Facebook Messenger this month, the sources say, though it may end up launching at a later date. With it, Messenger users can play easily accessible games with their friends, perhaps drawing more people to the service.

Sony has announced that PlayStation 4 consoles purchased on November 4th and November 5th will include a free copy of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, the latest addition to the popular game franchise. The promotion is being offered through ‘select retailers,’ according to PlayStation Brand Marketing Vice President John Koller. As well, it will only be available to customers in the United States and Canada.

Yes, yes, it's not 2017 yet. That doesn't mean we can't start looking toward the future, especially with the holidays upon us and some pre-order deals being available now. A handful of eagerly anticipated games are scheduled to go live in the first quarter of 2017, and you don't want to miss out on them. Keep in mind, none of these games have launched yet (at the time of publication, that is), so it is possible some of these titles may end up releasing later in 2017 than expected. According to current reports, though, these are going to be the hottest games of (early) 2017.

Nintendo's newly announced Switch is exciting, but begs the question: will the company ditch the Nintendo 3DS? The answer to that is no, at least judging by comments made by Nintendo President Tatsumi Kimishima during a recent interview. When asked whether the company would discontinue the 3DS in light of the Switch, Kimishima said, "...we think the 3DS can continue in its own form."